NFL Ball during a regular season game
(Photo by Scott Clarke / ESPN Images)

Having spent his entire NFL career (2004-2014) as a center for the San Diego Chargers, Nick Hardwick was able to gather some insights into team owner Alex Spanos, who died Tuesday at age 95.

Hardwick saw Spanos as someone who approached the business of football the way he expected his players to approach the game on the field.

‘The team made their Super Bowl run and had a couple of really good eras under his ownership’

“Everything I know about him, very tough in business,” Hardwick told Bruce Murray on the SiriusXM Blitz. “And the team really took off, they said, when he gave the personnel control over to (Hall of Fame General Manager) Bobby Beathard. And when he did that in ’94, along with giving day-to-day control over to his son, Dean (Spanos), then the team made their Super Bowl run and had a couple of really good eras under his ownership.”

Hardwick is a sports-talk-radio host in San Diego, so naturally he fielded plenty of calls Tuesday about Spanos’ passing. How many were negative because of the team’s move to Los Angeles?

‘Dean wears (the Chargers’ move to L.A.) for the whole family’

“You know, it’s funny, our last caller called in and he goes, ‘The team never would have left town had Alex still had control of the ownership group,'” Hardwick said. “And Dean really wears it. And Dean wears it for the whole family.

“There’s three other siblings who all have equal voting rights with Dean to be able to leave town, but Dean was the face of the franchise. He’s the one who wears this and Alex was just looked at as a tough, hard-working business man who came from nothing and kind of lived the American dream. But I don’t think he wears any of it in San Diego.”